Joey Cooksey was 3 or 4 when she told her mother that she wanted to be in the Guinness Book of World Records.

“You’ve got to figure out something you can do,” her mother responded, adding that Joey would have to be better or faster than the world.

More than a decade later, the Gresham girl stumbled onto a YouTube video demonstrating an unusual sport: competitive cup stacking.

“I think I found it,” she told her mother.

Now 16, Joey can claim to be the fastest cup stacker in Oregon, thanks to a second place finish behind a Washington girl at the World Sport Stacking Association’s Northwest Regional competition in Auburn, Wash., on March 8. Her win earned her a spot at this summer’s Junior Olympic Games in Des Moines, Iowa.

Joey, a sophomore at Sam Barlow High School, doesn’t plan to stop there. In her quest for world domination in the sport, she practices obsessively — from two to five hours per day, she said.

“I’ve always wanted to be known for something,” she said.

Cup stacking, also known as sport stacking, requires speed and consistency. Competitors stack and unstack specially designed lightweight plastic cups in established sequences, various combinations of pyramids of three, six or 10 cups.
Stacking happens on soft fabric mats laid atop tables.
Timers built into the mats keep track of the seconds ticking by.

If the sport sounds easy, it’s not. The goal is to stack the cups as fast as humanly possible without dropping or knocking over any cups, a misstep known as scratching. Cup stackers move their hands so quickly that videos of competitions sometimes appear to be stuck on fast forward.

“Some of them, it’s just a blur of color,” Joey’s mother, Lynda, said.

The pair met up at a Portland park last August after Joey reached out to Nedrow, who won the title of second fastest girl in the world in 2013.

“I know she really loves it,” said Nedrow, who is a student at Duke University.

Cup stacking isn’t only for young people, although the sport’s culture thrives on YouTube and other social media sites.

John Ansotigue, 62, runs the World Sport Stacking Association’s Northwest United States tournament. He said the sport appeals to people of all ages and builds.

“You don’t have to be tall,” he said. “You don’t have to be strong. You just have to have a desire to participate and be the best you can.”

Will it last? Or will cup stacking have the same life span of other short-lived pursuits?

“It’s going to go the way of the hula hoop,” Ansotigue said. “And you know what? The hula hoop is still around.”

Joey, for one, is already hooked. She’s hoping to raise $1,500 to help pay for her trip to the Junior Olympics in Iowa. But she’ll keep practicing no matter what happens at the games, she said. She wants to keep getting better.